2. It Is The Darkest Of Dark Humour
The image used on the posters is certainly a striking one. A chorus line of dancing girls emerges from the mouth of a giant fish-shaped structure, to be met by a smiling, stylish gentlemen who takes their hand and twirls them like toys. The man, you may (or may not) be surprised to learn, is Anwar - and the 'girl' beside him is in fact Herman Koto, his overweight and buffoonish sidekick, of sorts. Throughout the course of the film, you accustom yourself to the surreal sight of Koto dressed in drag; seemingly a requisite for the gangsters' more flamboyant re-enactments. Here we see, and with comically confusing effect, the influence of the musicals.Take, for example, the film's impossibly kitsch opening scene. A group of female dancers stand by a waterfall and make gentle sweeping motions while, somewhat unconvincingly, smiling at the camera. For reasons bafflingly left unknown, the backing track is 'Born Free'. Yet such levity bristles uncomfortably against the true purpose of the scene, which is revealed near the film's finale. Standing in the centre of it all, and ominously dressed in black, is Anwar- who is shown receiving a medal from the ghost of a communist. Chillingly, the spectre then thanks him for ''executing me and sending me to heaven''. Not for the first time in the film's two-hour duration, you find yourself staring at the screen with wild-eyed wonder; trying -but failing- to comprehend what on earth you've just seen. Similarly, watching the men re-enact setting ablaze not just one house but an entire village, with smoke and chaos fogging the lens, you begin to question whether they've taken this 'film star' status a little too seriously. Oblivious to the genuine cries of panic around him, Koto sits his young daughter upon his knee and tells her, ''Febby, your acting was great. But you have to stop crying.'' It isn't long before this film-within-a-film becomes local news. And so, in order to promote both their movie and the message of the Pancasila Youth, Anwar, Koto et al are booked onto an Indonesian daytime talk show. It's fair to say that although the format looks familiar, you've never seen a public service message quite like this before. The host, an attractive, smiling young woman, credits Anwar as having ''invented a new, more efficient way of exterminating communists'', which, naturally, draws an almighty cheer from the studio audience. Anwar then looks directly into the camera lens and promises to kill any remaining 'offenders'. Again, applause.Yet Oppenheimer's camera reveals a very different reaction from the studio heads, who are each watching a wall of monitors. One, visibly shaken by this stark announcement, asks another ''How many people has he personally killed?'' ''About a thousand,'' comes the casual reply. The host, clearly not someone above encouraging mass-murder on daytime television, asks Anwar: what if they fight back? Comes the roar from Koto, who is sitting offscreen, ''Then we'll exterminate them all!'' This rallying outburst immediately sends the studio audience into a braying, blood-thirsty mob. The cinema audience, however, are stunned into silence.